The annual Jackson Road Cruise was not dampered by the rain this Saturday. With classic and new model cars, people flocked to this event to marvel at what the auto industry can create. In front of the MLive booth to our right was a 1964 Dodge Polara and to our left was a 2014 Tesla. This image represents the Jackson Road Cruise as a whole; a place where the community of all generations can come to enjoy a common interest. The Jackson Road Cruise is an event that the car community looks forward to all year. Building community affinity is important, and we recognize that. Our audience is comprised of all Michiganders, may they be car lovers, newspaper lovers, sports lovers or otherwise. Jackson Road Cruise is just one of many events that MLive supports because of the true value in community events.
Although MLive’s intention came with the typical and shameless self-promotion that is branding, the booth visitors were treated to swag and sustenance if they stopped to listen to us. Generally the conversation was MLive Boothies talking about My Michigan and paper/digital subscriptions and the listeners asking us how much the water and ice cream was. Luckily, both the water and ice cream were free. People were very willing to voice their praise of the MLive brand, if not for our work at least for our free goods. The compliments were a reaffirmation of MLive’s efforts to serve our community and deliver a quality product.
The positive experience and community response expressed at the Jackson Road Cruise makes the importance of this event evident. Integrating MLive’s community interests into tangible events allows us to put faces to the MLive name and visa versa with our consumers. Furthermore, MLive invests time with various auto clients, which is applicable to events such as the Jackson Road Cruise. Having a true presence at an industry related event shows our clients that we care about their business interests.
We are a brand that enters people’s lives with our news, campaigns, and endorsements. By investing in event presence we further integrate ourselves into the lives of our clients and consumers. Further integration allows us to better ourselves by connecting with those clients who believe in what we do and connecting with consumers who believe in our product.